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Malaysia Airlines MH370: China in new 'debris' clue

Satellite images of possible debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 have been released on a Chinese government website.

The three images show what appear to be large, floating objects in the South China Sea. Previous sightings of possible debris have proved fruitless.

The China-bound plane went missing on Friday with 239 people on board.

It vanished about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur as it flew south of Vietnam's Ca Mau peninsula.

No distress signal or message was sent.

The three images are:

The images were taken on Sunday, a day after the plane disappeared, but were only released on Wednesday on the website of China's State Administration for Science.

Map co-ordinates place the objects in the South China Sea east of Malaysia and off the southern tip of Vietnam.

China's official Xinhua news agency says the largest of the objects measures about 24m x 22m (78ft x 72ft).

Separately, Agence France-Presse quoted US officials as saying that US spy satellites had detected no sign of an explosion in the area at the time. The system has detected such heat signatures in the past but none was discovered this time, the officials said.

'All right, roger that'

China has deployed several high-resolution satellites - controlled from the Xian Satellite Control Centre in northern China - to help search for the jet, the People's Liberation Army said on Tuesday.

Earlier, Malaysian authorities revealed that the last communication from the jet suggested everything was normal on board.

Flight MH370 replied "All right, roger that" to a radio message from Malaysian air control, authorities said. Minutes later all contact with the plane was lost.

The area where the latest images were taken appears to be close to where the initial search took place.

Malaysian officials have since widened the search to the west of the peninsula amid reports that the plane could have tried to turn back or - for reasons that are not clear- turned west towards the Malacca Strait.

Malaysia said it had also asked India to join the search near the Andaman Sea, suggesting the plane might have reached those waters after crossing the Malacca Strait.

Earlier on Wednesday, Malaysia's air force chief Rodzali Daud denied remarks attributed to him in local media that the flight had been tracked by military radar to the Strait.